Road to the clouds

When leaving Dunedin, and traveling North, the road takes you up into the hills. These hills are known for the cloud formations that often surround them; in fact the area is sometimes referred to as a “cloud forest”.  Often as you travel along the road it does feel like it is a journey into the clouds, at least until you get to the top of the hill and see the North Otago coastline spread out below. You then realise it is time to leave the clouds and move down to the road that weaves its way along this coastline. There is no doubt that the road north is one of contrasts.

A clump of water

Yesterday I commented about photos of clumps of things. Well, this a a photo of a clump of water, if that is possible? Taken at the Blue Pools near Wanaka, I was fascinated by the intricate ripples on the water – that made it almost mosaic like. So, I just took a random shot of a section of the pool. It has no boundary so I guess it meets my definition of a clump.

Driftwood by the Lake

You may have noticed but I like taking photos of clumps of things: paths, walls, stones, grass – anything that has no natural boundary or can be defined as a “unitary” object. Every part of the picture is part of the picture. In this case it is a clump of driftwood on the shore of Lake Wanaka.  Around the world there are billions of options for taking photos of clumps of driftwood, but once the photo is taken the clump is unique as defined by the borders of the picture. There can never be another picture exactly the same. From the picture patterns emerge, in fact everyone who looks at the photo will see different forms and patterns. Clumps take their own form and change every time you look at them. For me clumps are one of the ways photography can get close to what the impressionist and post-modern painters were trying to achieve. A picture that is a picture in its own right, not a representation of something “out there”. And clumps make great wallpaper for computers.

At the blue pool

One of my favourite photos. It provides a feeling of being around for a long time yet the cairn suggests people have been here recently. Where does human interference impact on the natural course of events? The small piece of “person” tinkering is in focus in the foreground; nature trundles on in the slightly hazy background. It’s a hot lazy day as these two aspects of the world happily co-exist.

Family Home

The newly painted family home sparkles in the Dunedin summer. The special thing about this house is that it was designed and pre-fabricated in America in the mid 1800’s and then shipped to New Zealand where it was assembled on this property around 1863. The house has been added to and repaired at various times, but this front section is pretty much original. It would have been great to have a similar photo taken when the house was built to compare with this photo, but when the house was fabricated cameras were still quite rare, and certainly did not take colour shots.

Havelock North House

This photo is full of family history. It is taken in Havelock North, New Zealand. The house was built by my grandfather, Green Hall, and was the first home for my mother. It is now part of a camping ground, hence the sign. The apricot trees were planted by my grandfather as he attempted to start an orchard. Unfortunately the orchard was not successful and my grandfather sold the house and property and moved on to a new career as a Methodist minister. Standing in front of the property is Green’s great great grandson, Aiden.

Paris Bistros

The La Rotonde, a typical bistro in Paris. I found the Bistros to be amazing places. First, they had been around for a very long time. Second, they had been frequented by the artists, and other influential people of their time, who began to pave the way for our modern world. Inside the buildings photos of Picasso, Hemmingway, Matisse and so on show the vibrant community of “thinking” people who have lived in this part of Paris. To be able to go back and feel part of that world was very special and made me realise even more that each person is a thread that makes up the fabric of human progress. No where else have I experienced the past and present being so intertwined as in this part of Paris.

building an island’s economy

While holidaying in Rarotonga in 2010 I was impressed by the effort many young people were making to build the economy of the island, primarily within the tourist industry. These young people had often been educated in other countries, such as New Zealand, and were bringing back what they had learned to try and move the country ahead. In particular they were trying to implement innovative ideas, building on the natural and historic resources of the islands, that matched the type of tourist experiences people might have in other countries. Really interesting things don’t happen only in Silicon Valley!

Tuscany

The hills of Tuscany; a much photographed area, and my photo here is no different from most other shots people have taken. The main impression I wanted to capture from my photos of this area was how similar it was to parts of New Zealand. In fact whenever I could get a shot of the country side that didn’t  include a medieval village, or tower, or wall and so on I was sure that if I showed the photo to someone in New Zealand and said it was a photo of somewhere in , say Hawke’s Bay, they would believe me. The feeling that I had of an affinity with this country side was quite special and made me realise that there is in fact more communality in the geography of the world than divergence.

Boeing factory Seattle

Another highlight of being in Seattle was a visit to the Boeing factory. This was quite special for me given that I had spent many years, as an aircraft engineer, working on Boeing aircraft – mainly 737s. Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit the actual factory because of worker strike action, but it was great to be in the place that had produced the planes I spent so many years working on (although this wasn’t the part of the Boeing network where 737s were produced!). We did get to see the Boeing history and display section which had several mock ups of parts of the 787; definitely worth seeing.

stretcher frame with cross bars Roy Lichtenstein

Bernadette standing beside Roy Lichtenstein’s “Stretcher Frame with Cross Bars”. The reason I like this photo is that it is an example of where I used search technology to find the title and painter of the picture. I searched a range of possible  titles using Google images (such as “pop art windows”, “window picture”, – names of some artist such as Warhol, Lichtenstein) and eventually found a matching image. It wasn’t easy as there are some look a likes, and the title, of course, does not include “window” in it.

Casa Nova's house

While in Venice you can also float past Casa Nova's house. Not that I know a lot about Casa Nova and his history, but I didn't know that he lived on a canal. Venice is a city with many unexpected twists and turns.

Interesting sights in Venice

Some of the more interesting sights in Venice are not what you would expect. For example, where else would you find garages for boats rather than cars? Cruising around the canals we came across a number of these types of constructions. Generally Venice is a triumph of how people can learn to live in a totally different environment, in this case on a large boggy lagoon. Everywhere there are adaptations, from the thousands of wooden piles the city is built on, steps that lead directly to water, small gardens that fit on edges of the canals, water rather than land transport and or course garages for boats.

Screwed up Faces

When we were in Amsterdam we went to an exhibition where a photographer had worked his way around the middle east taking pictures of people with screwed up faces. Essentially he asked them to contort their face as much as they could then he took the shot. There were some amazing photographs and some evidence that the "fun" of the activity relaxed some of the tensions amongst the people involved in what was a pretty tense time in the area. I had to have a go myself; I guess I was not as good at screwing my face up as some of the people shown in the exhibition, but I gave it a good go.

Wedding photographers

I took this photo at a wedding I was at recently. The pervasiveness of digital photography is everywhere; for many people at an event they are actually viewing it through the screen of a digital camera - or at least they are viewing a significant part of the activity through a screen. Maybe being at the "real thing" gives a feeling for the atmosphere of the event irrespective of how it is actually viewed.

The Thinker

One day while in Paris Sally and I were wandering down from the Eiffel Tower towards our hotel when we came across the Musée Rodin.

It was one of those "stumble across something you weren't expecting" experiences; Even with my knowledge of art I hadn't been aware that there was a Rodin gallery in Paris, or that he had been so influential in the development of the art scene in Paris and Europe.

The sculptures are amazing, and after half a days exposure to diversity of form Rodin produced it is not hard to see why he was able to have such an impact of the art scene. He essentially was beginning to do what the painters were doing, transforming sculpture from an attempt to represent something "real" to a form that has it's own existence.

It was humbling to be able to walk amongst these transformational sculptures and feel the history of modern art all around us.

My First Home

Over my lifetime I have lived in many houses at several locations in New Zealand. In fact the longest period of time I have lived in any house is the house I currently live in - around 14 years. Overall I estimate I have lived in about 17 different houses at six locations.

This photo is of the house I first lived in. Guppy Road Greenmeadows clearly provided a lot of scope for landscaping, and my father is at the front of the house giving it a good go. I was to young to remember anything about living in this house, but it was a starting point.

Each house I have lived in has had it's own character and history. They have become markers for different stages of my life. I wonder if that would have happened if I had lived in one or two houses over the course of my lifetime?

If only they knew

This is a photo of my father heading off on his honeymoon. Nothing fancy, a car, a tent and two people beginning to share the future together. Who would have thought back then that one day this photo would be included in a system called the world wide web, with almost anyone in the world being able to look at it. Also, would they have realised that the photo could be included in an integrated family history that will live on in the digital future? Increasingly we have the opportunity to become digital archivists and to include everything we can about people from the past world as well as the current world. In a sense my parents are still part of the future, a future they could never have imagined they would be involved in. Journeys can be strange things!

Face to face with a black bear

This photo is the location of my most profound wildlife experience: finding my self face to face with a black bear. The place is Vancouver Island. Early in the morning I opened the door of the Backpackers hostel we were staying in and, there right in front of me was a sizable black bear. Black bears are not large bears, but to me it was fairly enormous. In New Zealand the largest mammals you might come across in the wild are goats or deer; they of course will run off, probably  before you even see them. As the bear and I looked at each other I found I wasn't afraid, even though I could have let a dozen stories of how dangerous bears could be run through my mind. Instead I felt calm and enjoyed my brief moment with the bear until it sniffed the air around it and ambled off to find more rubbish bins to forage in. Then it was gone. But, the image of that experience has never left my mind and I realised that enjoying the moment was far more important than racing back into the hostel to find a camera to try and photograph it. In the time it would have taken me to get my camera it would have probably moved on anyway. So, I guess that's why I only have a photo of where the bear and I met; not of the actual meeting.

Manet painting

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe by Edouard Manet was a painting that had a significant impact on my interest in art, particularly modern art. I studied this painting when I was at the School of Education in Hamilton - and was really excited when, many years later, I stood in front of the actual picture in a Gallery in Paris. The painting was real! I was able to appreciate how far I had come from those early days of College art classes in terms of my understanding of art and how this had impacted on my life. A loop had been closed.